Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-19
A GREAT SCHEME.
EX.Secretary 8anning's Bank Proposes
toWrest from England the Con-
troll Of the Prices OF Silver.
Bullion Certificates to be Issued and
Traded In as Wheat and stock
Certificates Are.

|. NEW YORK, May 18.-The Commercial
Advertiser says an organization is being
effected among certain capitalists of this
city to tarde in silver bullion certificates
as grain and common certificates are now
dealt in. The head center Of the oTgani-
zation will be the new Western National
Bank, Of which ex-Secretary of the Treas
urY Manning and eX-Treesurer Jordan
are the founders. Manning and,associates
have planned to make Kew York the
chief seat OF the silver bullion trade, and
thus transfer the continental silver market
from London to New York. Their plan of
operations is to have silver bullion
in large quantities deposited with
the Western National Bank, or
elsewhere, and issue certificates against
the bullion so deposited and have these
certificates traded in very much as grain
certificates are in Chicago, or as stock
certificates are here. To accomplish that
however ii Will be necessary to secure
the cooperation of the governors of the
stock exchange to secure the listing Of
the proposed silver certificates on the
exchange. If that can be done the plan
will be Carried out and transactions in
silver certificates become as marked q
feature of the stock exchange as
the business of trading in gold
in the days of greenback depre-
citation, and perhaps there will even come
to be a silver room as there was once 8
gold room and in any case the trading
here will become the controlling force of
the silver market precisely as the sale in
Indian consols in London is now g con-
trolling force. Conrad n. Jordan, vice
president of the bank, was asked il such
scheme was on foot. At first Jordan
seemed utterly oblivious to its existence,
but the production of further facts con-
vinced him he did know something about
it. Said he: "Such q scheme'is on foot,
but not with US exclusively. There are
number of men getting this idea into
shape, but it Will not be ready to be made
public for several weeks yet. If anything
is published about it it will injure
the scheme very much. The Western
National bank will not speculate IN silver.
We shall never buy an ounce. If any
thing suggesting q speculative purpose on
the part of the bank is published, l shall
publicly disavOw the whole thing. We
are willing to issue certificates for silver
or rather act as registers, but we shall
not do snythlngs else, for we propose
to do only legitimate banking business.
London now controls the silver market
of the world. If this scheme goes
through, as it surely will, the controlling
power will be in this city. This you Will
readily observe will be great thing for
US. Instead of our being dependent upon
London for the price of silver, London
will have to depend upon us. Mr.. Jordan
said his friends undoubtedly proposed to
speculate in silver, but the bank would
not do so IN any way. Mr.. Jordan, con-
tinuing, said: "The organization of the
scheme has so far progressed the form
of the certificate is now being discussed.
1t will be ready for publication in about
Two weeks. l have been called the
enemy of silver. l am not, but the
silver dollar can never be dollar.
1t is all bosh. l would have no dollars
of silver; it is not used enough. Every
silver dollar coined shows disuse of sill
yer. / should only have halves, quarters,
ten-cent pieces, ETC., each to weigh in pro-
portion to the amount equal to the dollar.
If the government persists in its present
ruinous policy there is no telling where
things will end. America is the largest
silver producing country, and it is an idea
to get control of our Wn market and that
of South America"